Freddie Adu is horrible. Why are people even getting his comments. If he was good enough to be on the US team, he would be playing for them, so why would he be routing for Ghana? Adu is a joke. As far as im concered, as long as Ghana is getting into the world cup, i wouldnt want freddie Adu on my team. He might score an own goal!

Adu is still very young, he has a lot of time to prove himself. Right now, you're right, he doesn't belong on a world cup field, but that's b/c he's so young. In four years, we'll see what kind of player he really is. I'm not saying he'll be incredible, but we'll know a lot more about him.

he'll never make a world impact!!!

how could us lose?

sucky referee

I think...relly I don't know who will but adu is funny but he says what he says

the u.s. sucks and is overrated. anyone that thinks the u.s should of one just needs to watch landon donavon when he had the ball in the second half against the kicker and passed it when he probably could of scored. if he and the rest of the team want to don't want to take shots when they have them they shouldn't whine if something doesn't go their way. they should suck it up and play or stay home and shut up!

In my opinion I am truly proud to be a US soccer fan, I ask for all US soccer fans to put your heads up and look at the next level of mountains that we must conquer. For I am proud that we left this WC with a team that is playing WAY BETTER than mexico, and could of beating them again.
With this WC not goin' the way we wanted, we will learn a lot from it and be ready for South Africa 2010 baby!WHOOOOOOO!

Posted by: USA!!!! USA!!!! | June 22, 2006 11:03 PM

WE MUST LOOK UP HIGH AND BELIEVE THAT THIS IS JUST THE BEGINING OF A GREAT 2010 WC. WE MUST LOOK UP HIGH AND WIN EVERY CONCACAF MATCH AND CHAMPIONSHIP SUCH AS THE GOLD CUP AND BE THE FIRST CONCACAF TEAM AGAIN TO QUALIFY FOR 2010 FOR AN EASIER SEED AT SOUTH AFRICA.
WE MUST UNITE OURSELVES TO KEEP TOPPING MEXICO, AND A BETTER FIFA SEED WILL COME FORTH. US SOCCER MUST UNITE ITSELF WITH IT'S FANS FOR A BETTER ATMOSPHERE. FOR THOSE AMERICAN KIDS PLAYING IN THE STREETS OF L.A., TEXAS, NEW YORK, FLORIDA, JERSEY, ECT. WILL BE THE AMERICAN HEROES ONE DAY WITH THE CUP!

Branden is right.The reality of everything is the US will never win a World Cup.They don't want it as bad as the other teams do. Once they start losing they just give up.For example, their first game against the Czech Republic. Once they started losing they gave up . And another reason the U.S will never win a WC is because of Landon Donovan. He needs to learn how to shut up. All he does is talk. Talking things about Mexico when they didn't even make it to the next round and Mexico did. As far as Freddy Adu goes, he might as well go for his Ghana team b/c the U.S is going nowhere and the better team did win.

one more thing for USA, if the U.S was "WAY" better than Mexico, how come they didn't qualify and Mexico did? How come tha U.S lost basically all their games and Mexico didn't? You just have to accept the fact that Mexico is the better team. They act more like a team too. Also, look at the facts. Mexico is nominated the 3rd best team in the world and the U.S is 4th.

The reason the US lost is because its 'stars' didn't do crap. Donovan was invisible, McBride is only good for headers which he didn't do anything with anyway, beasley really didn't come out until the game against ghana, Reyna didn't step up either, and the worst player of them all was Bobby Convey. How many crosses did he screw up just against Czech Republic alone? I can't understand why he even started against Italy with that performance. Plus the U.S. pretty much just played kick and run, and the times that they did have possession they were too slow with the ball. The only solution is for more american players to play in top leagues in Europe, not the MLS. Not only do they have to do this because the quality of play is better but also so they can get used to packed stadiums so they don't choke next time. Bottomline: U.S. certainly has the potential to be a force, but a lot of changes need to be made. Sorry for the essay.

I have to agree with ajksoccer in his overall opinion of why the US did not advance. It very obviously was due, in large part, to the 'star' players not putting in star performances. However, I will disagree on some of the specifics. Agreed, Donovan had a terrible showing in this World Cup. Granted he was out of his element in playing behind McBride most of the time, but a quality player (and no matter what bad-mouthing he may receive here, he is in fact a quality player) has to find a way to get involved and make an impact. Landon did not do that with the exception of a few spells here and there in the Italy match. Beasley, though he defended well and provided a brilliant set up for Dempsey's goal, did not bring any of the undaunted attacking fervor he had in 2002. McBride didn't show up vs. the Czech's, nor did Keller. There's more, but we'll leave it at that. Here's where I start to disagree. Reyna was the one player that consistently did step up in all three matches. He was the only one that did anything effective vs. the Czech's. He was composed, skilled and physical vs. Italy and controlled the midfield admirably considering the situation and the competition. All told, I've never been as impressed with Reyna as most people are, but he earned my respect right up to the point of that horrendous giveaway that swung the game in favor of Ghana. It was a slack effort and was punished as such, but barring that one mistake, Reyna is the one field player that I would tell to hold his head high for his overall performance. I'll disagree on Convey as well. I'll definitely give you the wasted crosses, and a certain lack of control. However, it's a stretch to consider him one of the stars that didn't show up. He may be part of the same class that graduated from the U-17s with Donovan and Beasley, but he doesn't have the international experience of Donovan, Beasley, McBride, Reyna, etc. He's a young player that was given a shot here, not someone that was supposed to play a truly pivotal role. For that reason, I'll forgive him his nerves and lack of control, and I'll commend him for being one of few to show some confidence in taking players on. Not a stellar performance by any means, but we'll see him with Reading and hope he adds refinement to his creativity and pace on the ball.

There are many other points of note, but I'll save them for a topic of their own rather than taking this one farther from its intended subject.

As for Freddy....not ready... He has talent, but he is still very young and you never know how that will pan out. We'll see how he progresses between now and 2010. I don't see how anyone can blame him for some degree of allegiance to Ghana however. It was his home, and he came to the US with his family for better opportunities. Most anyone would want to see their native squad do well and be a little conflicted between that and their current home.

I agree that the US did not generally play like they wanted to win. The showing against Italy was good, but like everyone has been saying, Donovan really did not shine like he had been expected to. The level of play, like others have said, is just not as good in the MLS. MLS superstars are probably just mediocre fare in the World Cup.

The team's ability to work against Ghana was seriously (IMHO) hurt by the loss of Pope and Mastroeni. The latter was, to me, the best player for the US in the Italy game, and the only player whom I could see performing consistently on an international level. I think he and Mathis had the best overall showing, but shame they had so little time. I also hope to see great things in the future from Oguchi, who played some generally great defense.

Dempsey did alright, he plays in the MLS. I think the problem is mindset. We must play quick and aggressively, with confidence, not just in attack, but also on the defense side of the ball. We did miss Mastroeni. It forced Reyna to play in Mastroeni spot, further back on the field...and he screwed that up with the give away for a Ghana goal. We didn't miss Pope too much in my opinion. His replacement, Jimmy Conrad, played well. Our midfield was the problem.

usa sucks... no way will you be better than mexico mate ... 2010 those kids will be making an impact most of the champions that won in peru the sub17 beating brazil 3-0 are already in european clubs.. 3 in barcelona.. 1 arsenal but loeaned to celta in spain... and many more mate don't kid yourself the usa said the same thing 4 yrs. ago... in 2006 will make an impact... embarrasement i'll say... sick to soccer mate thanks

Couple things: 1) Who's to blame for the USA's first round exit? Personally, I blame Ghana, Italy and the Czech Republic. Let's not forget that we were drawn into one of the two strongest groups in the tournament, and the Czechs - semifinalists at Euro 2004 - are going home too.

2) As for the ridiculous which-is-better-USA-or-Mexico debate, consider that each won at home against the other during qualifying, and that the USA won when it mattered in 2002. If the US had played Portugal (beat them in 2002), Iran and Angola in the group stage of WC2006, there might be a different CONCACAF representative in the round of 16.

Could we have been better? Without a doubt. But let's gain some perspective.

well to start with the usa doesnt suck. they way fifa chooses whos in what group sucks. they need to seed it out and have brackets intsead of groups.

the players that actually showed up to the world cup to play were probably clint dempsey...he played awesome against italy and had really good crosses...i think mcbride was there for part of it but he went home early...reyna played spectacular against italy and in the ghana game until he got hurt.

i also think that kasey keller has been extremely overrated even by saying that he is a good goal keeper. its just sad how long hes been playing at the international level and he still doesnt know how to react to some stuff and how to cover the goal when coming out. about the usa mexico thing....mexico had a really easy group where the usa had 2 powerhouses to deal with and a cinderalla story. mexico had it easy thats really obvious.

now about freddy adu...i dont think he is ready yet but everyone kept saying the usa needed a spark to get them going and maybe adu would have been that spark u never know what could happen. but in his comment that he doesnt know who to root for uhh thats kinda obvious he is a capped member of the us national team that means u root for ur team i mean wat an idiot.

in the 2010 world cup the usa will have a break thru i think. i think arena will be gone so we can get rid of the 4-5-1 that gives u only 1 stiker and hopefully we can get back to the 4-4-2 so we can push up faster and more efficiently. the usa will be good

The only game where usa did well enough was with Italy, even though usa commited some stupid fouls which in turn put us in a handicaped position. Besides that we were very inconsistent plus the tough group made matters worse. I think our build up and our play making left alot to be desired. In the midfield only Mastroeni looked good everyone else pretty much sucked. On defense only Bocanegra looked good to me and up front the forwards were'nt getting enough support from the midfield or the backline. usa often looked like a worned out team or like they were lazy to put in the effort that was necessary. I was even wondering what might have been going on within the team that made us play so horrible and so inconsistent after consistenly showing good results prior to the world cup. They sure didn't look like the usa we were used to. About Bruce Arena needs to leave for somebody that is actually interested in coaching and in working hard to pull out positive results. I suspect that usa shocked from media pressure given that people and sports media in the us are paying more attention to the team's performance and the world cup itself. Last world cup nobody took them seriously. About Freddy Adu, its ridiculuous how much attention he gets the guy is still only a kid. So far he hasn't even proven himself in the MLS and it is uncertain how much will his game pick up. Hopefully he can become a superstar to help the team come next world cup. I say lets wait until the next world cup and then we could start talking, right now hes just an amateur player.

You can't compair mexico and the states in this world cup. If anything, the only reason mexico is going on is because their group was considerably easier. Iran, Angola, potugal??? to czech, italy, ghana are you kidding?? The mexican teams is totally irrelevent in these posts. Its suppose to be about freedie adu, who i think is very stupid for saying that peter novak is hurting his chances in going to the world cup. Adu doesnt belond there yet. And yeah, it might be natural for him to care about his homeland, but being a US fan I don't want adu being on the field if hes having mixed emotions about his homeland. Having said that hopefully he wisens up and thinks about the comments that he makes.

IF SHARAPOVA AND ANNA HAS BEEN REPRESENTING RUSSIA FOR SO MANY YEARS IN WTA, WHY CANT FREDDY REPRESENT GHANA.

All that really fascinates me about the US Men's National Team is that Mcbride is one tough guy. I do not know if you know but Mcbride has metal plates in his face. Sowhen he got that elbow to the face he said it did not really hurt. Now that was crazy!

Adu hasn't proven himself because DC United doesn't want to play him.

Ghana is going for the cup, no matter the cost

I have to agree that I don't see the relevance of Mexico in any of these posts. That is not the topic here. But if we must talk about it, the response is that it's still not relevant, because Mexico had arguably the easiest group in this World Cup, so you can't compare the two. If a seeded team couldn't advance from that group, I would have even more questions about Mexico deserving a seed than I already had to start with. Any seeded team should have breezed right through this group and walked all over Iran and Angola yet Mexico struggled, losing to the only quality side in the group, failing to beat Angola and advancing with only 4 points. I'll give Mexico credit for playing some quality football here and there, and for putting in a really hard fight against a brilliant Argentina side, but let's not act like 4 points in a really weak group is that strong of a showing. Put them in most other groups and they would not advance on that performance. The US did not play well and did not deserve to advance on their performance, but you can't compare them to Mexico in this World Cup, as you can't even begin to compare their groups (Italy, Czech Republic and Ghana vs. Portugal, Iran and Angola).

adu is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adu is just a kid....He is a great talent and may have a tremendous future...His age also does not help him to pick a team as he is still not emotionally completely mature...He is the BEST chance for the future of U.S. soccer.....BTW...As much as WE talk about Donovan, he is not even talented enough to make a team in one of the big European Premier Leagues...Sorry its true.....Viva La France!!!

Us. Is a great team. End of story. We WILL make an impact in 2010. No doubt about it. The only criticism I have is that the US doesn't mark up. Nearly all the goals scored against them are scored by players left wide open. That is all I have to say.

all i no is that if freddy dosent go to man u his talent is just gonna rot away at chelsea